It’s a common refrain among tough-on-immigration advocates that undocumented immigrants use up valuable public services while paying next to nothing in taxes.

In other words, the argument goes, this population of 11 million people living in the U.S. without legal status are essentially freeloading.

President Trump, among others, has long espoused this view. As a candidate he told CNN:

“Do you think an illegal immigrant getting money is going to be paying taxes? Sure, some probably do only because employers are insisting on it. But there’s very little percentage wise very little, probably 5 percent, 10 percent. It’s a very small amount pay taxes … Look, they’re here illegally. They’re not paying taxes.”

On the surface, the claim seems plausible. This is a population that largely lives in the shadows. And it’s fair to assume that many undocumented workers are paid under the table, with little incentive to report their earnings.

But while this may be the case for some, it certainly does not hold true for the majority.

In fact, tax records show that the federal government receives billions of dollars each year from undocumented workers who pay income taxes and payroll taxes.

In 2010 alone, more than 3 million undocumented workers contributed as much as $13 billion to Social Security, even though most won’t be eligible to receive those retirement benefits, according to a Social Security Administration report.

Many undocumented workers have fake Social Security cards that they show their employers, who in turn submit W-2 forms and federal tax payments on their behalf. Even if the Social Security numbers don’t actually link to anyone on file, the government gladly accepts the payroll taxes it receives, no questions asked.

“We estimate that earnings by unauthorized immigrants result in a net positive effect on Social Security financial status generally, and that this effect contributed roughly $12 billion to the cash flow of the program for 2010,” the report concluded.

A large number of undocumented workers without Social Security numbers also pay federal income taxes through an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, or ITIN, that the Internal Revenue Service issues regardless of immigration status.

In 2014, the IRS received $9 billion in payroll taxes from about 4 million people filing ITINs, the vast majority of whom were undocumented.

In addition to federal tax contributions, the undocumented population also contributes a sizeable portion of state and local taxes.

A 2016 report from the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that undocumented immigrants in 2013 also contributed an estimated $11.6 billion in taxes to state and local governments, mostly through sales and property taxes.

Glenn Beck, the controversial conservative political commentator, once infamously declared:

“Let me get something straight here for those illegal aliens that might be watching the program. You have human rights. You do not have legal rights.”

Beck’s pronouncement represents a pretty commonly held assertion: If you’re in this country illegally, you don’t have constitutional rights.

But it’s completely false.

With the exception of voting, traveling between states and running for president or Congress, the U.S. Constitution actually guarantees most of the same fundamental civil rights and liberties to everyone within the United States, citizens and non-citizens alike, including the estimated 11 million people living here unlawfully. That’s at least how the Supreme Court has interpreted the Constitution for more than a century.

Immigration advocates have long tried to make this clear to undocumented residents, many of whom are unaware that they have any legal protections at all. This education effort ramped up noticeably after the election of President Trump, whose tough-on-immigration stance has heightened fears among communities wary of being targeted for deportation.

Attorneys and immigration rights advocates from organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union have been busy hosting “Know Your Rights” workshops around the country, an effort give immigrants advice on what to do if confronted by immigration enforcement officials.

Equal Protection

The legal rights of undocumented immigrants are largely grounded in the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which explicitly guarantees equal protection of the law, not only to any U.S. “citizen,” but also any “person” living within “its jurisdiction.”

As far back as 1896, the Supreme Court reinforced this concept. “The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution is not confined to the protection of citizens,” it ruled in Wong Wing v. United States. “These provisions are universal in their application to all persons within the territorial jurisdiction, without regard to any differences of race, of color, or nationality; and the equal protection of the laws is a pledge of the protection of equal laws.”

In other words, anyone living in the U.S. — legally or not — has constitutional rights, including the right to equal protection of the law and that of due process (fair treatment in the judicial system).

This principle was furthered by the High Court’s 1973 decision in Almeida-Sanchez v. United States, which stated that non-citizens, regardless of legal status, are protected by the Constitution’s criminal charge-related amendments, including search and seizure, self-incrimination, freedom of expression and trial by jury.

Under the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, undocumented immigrants can deny law enforcement officers entry into their homes unless they have a valid search warrant or have been given explicit consent.

In the landmark 1982 Plyler v. Doe decision, the court further expanded this umbrella of equal protection, striking down a Texas statute that denied free public education to undocumented residents. The court ruled that Texas’ law violated the Equal Protection Clause. All children, it concluded, regardless of immigration status, are therefore entitled to a free public education.

Of course, there’s a pretty big difference between understanding your rights and feeling the confidence to actually exercise them, especially when an ICE agent is banging on the door.

“That’s why I say there are three really important things for folks to do in immigrant communities, and only the first one is knowing your rights,” says Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, a Los Angeles-based civil rights organization.

“The second is that folks need to know to never waive their rights. Never sign waivers.” If you give consent or voluntarily waive your rights, Saenz cautions, you essentially lose those legal protections.

“And the third is that people really need to get the message and understand that if they exercise their rights, they will not be alone — they will find support and resources,” Saenz adds. “People really need to be emboldened, especially when a screaming uniformed agent is asking your to sign a piece of paper.”

A lot of loaded terms are used to refer to the diverse group of more than 11 million immigrants who live in the United States without legal status. Although often relegated to the shadows of American society, this large population of undocumented residents were reluctantly thrust into the national spotlight during the long, bitter 2016 presidential campaign season. During his candidacy, Donald Trump consistently used fiery rhetoric, accusing undocumented immigrants of bringing crime and other problems into the country while taking valuable jobs from American citizens. He promised that as president, he’d order mass round-ups and mass deportations.

Since winning the election, Trump has somewhat narrowed the scope of some of his threats, now vowing to deport “the more than 2 to 3 million criminal illegal immigrants.” But he continues to stand by many of his anti-immigrant original pledges, including punishing so-called “sanctuary cities” for not complying with federal immigration officials and rescinding President Obama’s executive action that protects hundreds of thousands of undocumented young people from deportation.

Not surprisingly, Trump’s victory has provoked a heightened level of fear and uncertainty in undocumented communities across the country. In response, more than a dozen major cities, including San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York quickly reaffirmed their commitment to protecting documented residents and not cooperating with federal enforcement efforts (unless a serious crime is committed), even in the face of the president-elect’s threats to withhold federal funding.

Nearly a quarter of the nation’s undocumented population lives in California, which issued a similar pledge to its residents. The morning after the election, leaders of the state Assembly and Senate released a statement promising to maintain California as “a refuge of justice and opportunity for people of all walks, talks, ages and aspirations … California will defend its people and our progress.”

So who are California’s undocumented residents? Where do they come from? And what impact do they have on this state’s massive economy?

Comic illustrator Andy Warner explains. Read the full comic or view as a slideshow below.

Things got all the more confusing for America’s 11 million-plus undocumented immigrants when a federal judge on Monday blocked President Obama’s recent executive actions to defer millions of deportations.

Citing an administrative technicality, the Texas judge issued a temporary injunction that stalls two programs Obama announced in November, largely in response to frustration over Congress’ failure to enact any kind of comprehensive immigration reform.

One of the initiatives is an expansion of the administration’s original Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which would allow undocumented immigrants older than 30 who came to the U.S. illegally as children to apply for deportation deferrals and work permits. The Department of Homeland Security was supposed to start accepting applications for the program this week, but has since postponed doing so, leaving an estimated 290,000 eligible applicants in the balance.

Obama’s second program, which was set to go into effect this spring, would allow undocumented parents of U.S. citizens and green card holders who have lived in the U.S. for at least five years to apply for a 3-year deportation deferral. An estimated 3.7 million immigrants are expected to qualify.

The judge’s injunction comes after 26 mostly conservative states sued to stop Obama’s actions, claiming he had exceeded his constitutional authority and that the new programs would impose undue financial burdens. The administration said it would appeal the ruling and may try to seek an emergency order to allow the programs to go into effect.

The situation is just the latest in a long running series of dramas concerning U.S. immigration policy, particularly the question of how to deal with the roughly 11.4 million undocumented immigrants who live here. Check out the interactive map below, produced by The Pew Charitable Trusts, to explore where America’s undocumented population lives today, how that distribution has changed in the last half-century and the impact on individual states. (Note that the data is from 2010 and population rates have changed slightly since then.)

It’s the million dollar question, and the most divisive element of the Senate’s sprawling new effort to overhaul the country’s messy immigration system. After months of painstaking negotiation, a bipartisan group of senators, known as the “Gang of Eight”, recently unveiled a proposal to — among other things — create a path to citizenship for the millions who live here in the shadows. But legislators have made abundantly clear that this proposal is a far cry from “amnesty”. The path they outlined for almost all the undocumented (except for young “DREAMers” who would be on a streamlined 5-year path) is a tedious, decade-plus-long process full of steep hurdles and strict conditions, in which citizenship is a distant destination at the end of a long journey.

Where do the undocumented live?

The following map, produced by the online magazine Slate, uses the most recent Pew Research Center analysis of 2011 data, which includes state-by-state estimates. Slate notes that the data meets the 90-percent confidence interval for population estimates for each state (except for the handful of states where the undocumented immigrant population is so low that it’s nearly impossible to confidently estimate).

Many more undocumented immigrants reside in California (topping 2.5 million) and Texas (more than 1.5 million) than any other state, according to Pew data. However, Nevada has the largest proportion of undocumented immigrants—7.2 percent of the state population and nearly 10 percent of its workforce.

Mouse over each state to see the estimated number of undocumented immigrants living there, what percentage of the total state population and workforce they make up, and how the number of undocumented immigrants has changed over the past two decades.

Editor’s note: since production of the map, most media organizations have begun referring to this population as “undocumented” rather than ‘illegal” immigrants.

What else do we know about undocumented immigrants in the U.S.?

The population has actually gone down quite a bit since 2007, when it spiked at about 12 million, according to Pew. The decrease is due largely to the U.S. recession and increased border enforcement and deportations, with the rate of undocumented immigration from Mexico falling the most.

Mexicans made up close to 60 percent of all undocumented residents, according to a Pew analysis of the 2010 population. DHS estimates that in 2011, 70 percent of this population came from Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador.

Today’s estimated 11.1 million undocumented immigrants make up less than a third of all foreign-born residents in the U.S. Roughly 40 to 50 percent of the undocumented entered the country legally and overstayed their visas, according to a Pew 2006 analysis. And although about 1.6 million of the total undocumented population today arrived within in the last years , the majority of the current population has lived here for at least a decade, reports the Department of Homeland Security reports.

So how do we know all this?

Counting America’s undocumented population is a true exercise in estimation. Pew, a non-partisan public policy group, came up with the latest 11.1 million figure (for 2011) primarily by analyzing census data, which provides a measure of the total immigrant population (both legal and undocumented). Pew then analyzed a variety of other government data sources – including DHS – to estimate the number of legal immigrants (green card holders and refugees) and then subtracted this figure from the total number of immigrants. Of course, a lot more statistical wizardry goes into the calculation (as described here) but this is the basic framework for its estimation.

]]>7759caution_immigration_sign_flickr_jonathonmcintoshCredit: Flickr/Jonathon Mcintoshpew_popestimatesObama’s New Immigration Rule: What’s it Do and Who’s it For?https://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/2012/06/22/obamas-new-deportation-rule-what-does-it-do-and-who-benefits/
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The message was short but – for a lot of young people – pretty sweet:

“Effective immediately, up to 800,000 young people living in the U.S. illegally will no longer be subject to automatic deportation.”

And with that executive order, announced June 15, President Obama shook up in America’s immigration policy.

At least a little bit.

It’s no DREAM Act, but the Department of Homeland Security’s shift in policy – which bypassed Congress and went into effect immediately – will definitely effect the lives of a whole lot of young people. And no where will the impact be felt as widely as in California, where roughly a quarter of the nation’s young undocumented immigrants live, according the Migration Policy Institute.

The administration’s order – considered by many a political tactic to woo Hispanic voters – allows eligible undocumented residents to receive what’s called “deferred action,” which delays deportation proceedings and offers them a green light to apply for two-year work visas (that can be renewed indefinitely).

How many are eligible?

The Obama administration said that its new policy would benefit about 800,000 undocumented immigrants. Some, however, put that figure higher: the non-partisan Pew Hispanic Center estimated the change to affect as many as 1.4 million young people, more than 10 percent of the total population of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. About 70 percent of potential beneficiaries will be Mexican, the Center predicts. And of the 1.4 million eligibly people, about 350,000 live in California, the Migration Policy Institute estimates.

What are the criteria for eligibility?

Be 30 years old or younger

Have come to the United States before the age of 16 and lived here continuously for at least five years

Be currently enrolled in school; or have a high school diploma/GED; or be an honorably discharged veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard or Armed Forces

Have no criminal record and pose no threat to national security or public safety

Does this policy offer amnesty or a path to citizenship?

Nope. And it doesn’t offer the possibility of a green card either. In this respect, the new policy doesn’t shake things up nearly as much as would the DREAM Act, which would offer a path to citizenship and expand educational opportunity for roughly the same group of immigrants – often labeled DREAMers. That act, though, while supported by the administration, has been has been repeatedly stalled by Congress for upwards of a decade.

In his announcement, Obama called the new plan a temporary measure put in place until he and Congress could pass long-term comprehensive immigration reform.

“Let’s be clear,” Obama said. “This is not amnesty. This is not immunity. This is not a path to citizenship. It’s not a permanent fix. This is a temporary stopgap measure that lets us focus our resources wisely while giving a degree of relief and hope to talented, driven, patriotic young people.”

Can undocumented immigrants now apply for drivers licenses and college financial aid?

The administration’s policy change hasn’t changed anything in this arena. For now, each state still has digression to permit or prevent undocumented residents from applying for licenses, financial aid, and even whether they can attend public universities. Currently, only New Mexico and Washington State allow undocumented immigrants to get drivers licenses. And Utah offers a driving privilege card. California does not allow undocumented residents to apply for licenses, and the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles hasn’t commented yet on whether it plans to make any changes to the status quo. The state, however, will implement it’s own version of the Dream Act next year, allowing undocumented immigrants who fit certain criteria to apply for and receive state-funded financial aid for public universities.

Say Obama loses the election … then what happens?

It’s unclear. If Mitt Romney wins, he could technically reverse the policy, although he hasn’t specified if he would do so.

How do you apply for a deferral?

Government immigration agencies are still working out the specifics. Individuals who qualify will have to submit a request for review and provide supporting evidence to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. And eligible individuals currently in the middle of deportation proceedings will soon be able to request a review.